


Whole

by CentrauGuardian



Series: Whole [1]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 20:12:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5884006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CentrauGuardian/pseuds/CentrauGuardian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn hasn't really thought much of the creatures following the members of the Resistance around. Perhaps it's the fact that they seem so normal, so natural that he's never really noticed it beyond seeing who matches with what beast. It takes far too long for someone to ask the question, and for Finn to realise that he's missing something important again.</p><p>Daemon-verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whole

It took far longer than it should have for Finn to realise that he was the odd one out. And not just in the numerous, First Order-related ways he already was. He supposed it might have been the way everyone else was just so casual about it, or the way no one ever said a word to him about it, until Snap had gotten just a little bit too drunk and bulled through all the others to ask:

"Did you ever actually have a daemon?"

The silence at the table clued Finn in to the fact that this was an important question, a faux pas he hadn't realised he'd been making. He scrambled to think, to figure out if he'd ever heard that word before as Poe leant angrily over the table and hissed at Snap to shut his kriffin' mouth if he knew what was best for him. Flare had hopped from her place preening Poe's hair to stand next to the little Starling that always went with Snap, her wings hackling over her spine and her neck craning forwards as she screeched at the smaller bird. The Starling had clearly figured out Snap's mistake quicker than he had, and even as Flare ruffled her feathers back into place, turning her head to glare angrily with one eye at the other pilot, the Starling had turned to Snap and was angrily pecking his finger in admonishment.

"Finn, buddy, you don't have to answer that," Poe was saying, as he sat back with one last fierce look to the other pilot, who had cradled the little Starling in his hands and was murmuring miserable apologies as it twittered angrily at him.

Finn blinked slowly, bemused by what had just happened, and terribly confused, even as the other pilots slowly began to quietly converse again, Pava's fingers smoothing the harsh lines of her blue-jays back. He looked at Poe, who was still frowning as he watched Flare standing over Snap and his bird. "I think I've missed something," he started tentatively, as Poe turned that fierce gaze back towards him. "I'm not sure I could answer that question anyway, as I don't know what a daemon is."

This time the silence is more horrified, with all the pilots staring open-mouthed at him, instead of trying to look anywhere but. Snap and his Starling have stopped arguing on the other side of the table, and Flar whirled round to fix her gaze on him, wings mantling as she almost overbalanced in her haste.

It's Poe's look that hurts the most though. There's horror and shock in there, but it's the fear and revulsion that strikes Finn. He knows he's missed something, something important; it's normally Poe who gently guides him until he figures out what everyone else already knows.

Poe has never looked at him with fear before. Never looked at him with disgust.

Finn didn't expect it to hurt so much.

Before he's even figured all of this out, he's halfway down the corridor. He can hear the screech-crash of a chair being flung back behind him; the desperate cry of "FINN!" from Poe, the sharp call of Flare and the rustle of her wings. He reaches the door and slams it shut behind him; hears a frustrated screech and thinks good as he runs away.

He doesn't really know the base very well yet and it's not long before he's horribly lost. He doesn't really care as long as he's away. Away from the silence and stares and that look in Poe's eyes... It's pure luck that leads him to an exterior door and he bursts out into the night air, sucking in a breath as he puts his hands to his knees and folds under the pressure of that look.

It's a few moments before he can straighten up. He begins walking, one foot in front of the other, shoulders hunched and hands buried deep in his pockets.

He still doesn't even understand what he did wrong. He's not known words before, words like hug and rehabilitation and " _What's your name buddy?_ "

Finn found his feet have taken him to the edge of a bluff, the water dark and molten below him. He sits down with a huff, deeply upset and unable to figure out why, just why that revulsion in Poe's eyes still took stabs t his gut, churning his stomach and making his throat want to collapse in on itself.

For the first time in a long while, Finn found himself crying. Silent tears as he held himself rigid and solid. If someone had walked behind him they would never have known. All Stormtroopers learned to cry this way, hidden and suppressed. Anything more would warrant a demerit from their officers, and one time had been enough to teach Finn that he never wanted to go through that again.

He couldn't be sure how long it had been since he'd first sat down, but the growing ache in his hips and spine told him he was putting pressure on his healing wound that it couldn't cope with yet. With a quiet sigh he began to furiously repress the tears, building himself up again to face the others.

It was then he realised that he wasn't alone.

And by the hunched, sorrowful position General Organa had fallen in to, he suspected he hadn't been for a while.

He couldn't figure out what to say, trapped between the terror that someone had witnessed him crying, and the horror of seeing the General so utterly undone by his tears. He stammered briefly, stopping when Organa looked at him, lifting a hand to rest it on top of his on his knee.

He stayed silent as she sighed tiredly, then squared her shoulders and turned to nod at something behind him.

Finn glanced back to see the regal animal that always moved with the General pace towards them. He knew it was some kind of cat, he recognised that much. But cat didn't seem to do this creature any justice, it's tawny coat rippling with the movement of muscles beneath its skin, concealed strength and quiet power in every step it took. The beast moved around them, rubbing the long line of its head and neck against Organa's shoulder before coming to sit in front of Finn. Sharp green eyes gazed at him for a moment, ears twitching as it listened to things Finn couldn't hear.

"Hello Finn, my name is Lyrin."

Finn's jaw practically hit the floor, and it was only General Organa's hand holding firmly on to his that kept him from leaping away in shock.

_The cat thing spoke_ , he thought, everything else in his head frantically juddering to a halt, _it opened it's mouth and spoke to me._

Lyrin huffed in amusement when it became clear that Finn's mind wasn't going to reboot any time soon.

Organa squeezed his hand gently, before releasing it to gesture at the creature in front of Finn. "This is Lyrin," she repeated, quirking a grin at the beast as it nodded its head grandly. "And Lyrin is my daemon".

Finn turned to her at the word, glancing back and forth between the General and the newly-named Lyrin. It was an answer to the question he'd wanted to ask, and really it was no answer at all. He suddenly thought though, if this "Lyrin" was apparently General Organa's daemon, did that mean that the other creatures he'd seen following the other members of the Resistance were also daemons? He'd just assumed it was another Resistance quirk that he didn't know about, and wasn't shared by the First Order. He hadn't really thought about what they were; they just felt so natural beside the people that he'd easily accepted it.Rey had had her "Sherri" and when she'd asked about where his partner was, he'd just assumed she meant Poe. He'd noticed the way her eyes slipped from his as he'd tried to explain and the white knuckled grip she'd had on the ruff of her rust-coloured fox. But he hadn't really thought anymore of it. Rey was unused to dealing with people, and he'd forgiven her every little quirk so that he could make her smile instead. Han had given him a strange look and clapped him on the shoulder when he'd replied that there was no one else to the smuggler's query about who else was on board. The Wookie had rumbled quietly and patted him gently on the head, stroking his strange, monkey-like creature as he did so.

Really, perhaps Finn should have realised something was wrong a long time ago.

"Realised something's not quite right at last, have you?" Lyrin asked, amused even as Organa swatted at his ear. He merely rumbled softly at her, before tilting his head at Finn. "I am Lyrin, and I am Leia's as much as Leia is mine. And you, Finn, appear to have no daemon at all." He blinked lazily, then pulled his lips apart in a toothy, feral grin. "Which is most unusual really, seeing as all organic beings are born with one."

Yeah, Finn's definitely missed something here, he thinks. That was a lot of information with some important answers and Finn's got a few thousand questions more from that last sentence alone.

"What exactly is a daemon?" He settles on at last, after several moments of General Organa and Lyrin patiently waiting.

"It's a good question, to be honest," the General tells him after humming in thought. "No one is entirely sure, though there's a lot of speculation. The theory I ascribe to is that they're an extension of the mortal soul, molded into something solid and real by the Force itself. There's some good evidence for it, mainly in the way those who are Force-sensitive interact with their daemons and in the horrific experiments carried out millennia ago."

Finn looks at her, feeling the gaps in what she has left unsaid, and Lyrin whuffs harshly.

"What she is dodging around saying, is that the evidence comes from when a person and their daemon are Cleaved from each other." Lyrin says, staring at Finn with something tender in his eyes. "Which is slightly confused by the matter of you," he elaborates when Finn blinks at him.

"Yes," Organa murmurs, thoughtfully tapping her fingers on her thigh. "There is definitely that."

Finn swallows, feeling something important in the space between them. "What do you mean?" He asks tentatively, a dull feeling in his stomach telling him that he is not going to like the answer.

Organa sighed and turned to him, the full force of the gaze of the General behind her. "What I mean Finn, is that in every single documentation of Cleaving, it describes the humanoid partner becoming docile, drained of personality and utterly soulless. The daemon partner, when it survives," and here both she and Lyrin shuddered in unison, "when it survives, it becomes like a ghost, staying placidly at their partner's side, but able to go anywhere without them, no longer bound, no longer capable of speech or emotion." Lyrin had raised up and curled himself over Organa's lap as much as he could when she said this. Organa stayed focused on Finn, but her fingers wove into Lyrin's fur as she continued. "And here you sit before us, no daemon that I have seen, but so wonderfully and beautifully human and alive that the Force sings around you." She smirked as Finn flushed, Lyrin snickering beneath her hand. "I can only explain it as you having a daemon, and yet, clearly you do not."

"But," Finn frowned, "Surely sometimes a person or a daemon dies and leaves the other behind. What happens then?"

Organa stroked Lyrin's ears as he shuffled, clearly uncomfortable with that topic. "If the human aspect dies, the daemon dies with them, disappearing in a shower of gold sparks, joining with the Force completely." She held Lyrin's ruff in a possessive grasp, even as he turned his head to breath in the scent of her clothes. "And if the daemon dies, the person becomes lifeless and eventually, slowly, dies of heartbreak." She shudders. "It is something I have had to witness entirely too often in the course of this war," she muttered lowly, and Lyrin huffed in agreement.

"I'm so sorry," Finn breathed, "I didn't realise... I didn't mean... I'm sorry" he groaned mournfully, hanging his head as he realised the pain the conversation had caused the pair. "I would never have asked if I'd known how awful the subject is."

General Organa's snort startled him, and her light cuff to the back of his head made him sit up and stare at her as she grinned fondly back. "It had to be asked," she explained, shrugging her shoulders. "And better it be me than that fool, Dameron." She rolled her eyes. "Too protective by half that boy," she muttered, Lyrin stretching out of her lap and flopping to the ground in front of them. "And you," she said, uncurling and shoving at Lyrin with a toe, "entirely too proud of yourself," she grumbled fondly, as Lyrin yawned nonchalantly and feigned sleep.

"Do you think..." Finn found himself saying, before he'd even fully formed the question in his head. Organa clearly knew what he wanted to ask though, glancing over at him with that vaguely piercing look that made him feel like she was looking into him, instead of just at him. He shifted uncomfortably, not sure if the question was selfish, or foolish, and maybe, maybe just a little bit frightened that the First Order had made him something even less human than he had already thought.

He found himself flat on his back, with an angrily grumbling Lyrin flattening his paws to his shoulders, and a hot, damp breath sweeping over his face as the daemon planted himself on top of Finn, heat seeping into his bones.

"It's a rare honour," he heard Organa saying, "for someone's daemon to touch another person. They certainly wouldn't allow it for someone they considered less than human," she told him almost casually.

"You are ours." Lyrin growled at Finn, curled over his chest and staring him dead in the eyes. "Mine and Leia's and Poe's and Flare's and the Resistances and we are _keeping_ you." He stated, holding Finn down against the sudden urge to run from this, to make things easy again, even as something in him crackled and broke under the weight of belonging.

Finn wrapped his arms around the daemon, weeping silently into its fur as it chuffed softly at him. He lost time again, in the silent presence of Organa and the comfort of something warm and living holding on to him and breathing reassurance into his whole being.

It was a long time before he was able to let go, and when he finally could, Lyrin carefully released him, stepping back and sitting up, leaning against Organa's shoulder, a quiet moment of solidarity between them.

"When my brother returns," Organa spoke softly, "I will ask him if he can find what has happened to your daemon." Finn glanced at her, startled at her words. "I believe you have one, Finn, and while I cannot fathom how long you have been apart, I believe they are still out there," she looked at him, strength and fierce determination in her gaze. "I think your ability to be you without them says something to your strength of character, and," she hesitated briefly, "perhaps explains the amount of neurotechnology and suppresants in your system."

He considered it, remembering what the doctors had told him when he woke up. _"Your brain is rife with pieces of nanotech,"_ they had said, _"Some of it we have been able to turn off with no consequences. However,"_ and here they had glanced at each other before continuing, _"One piece sent you into cardiac arrest when we attempted it. We were able to bring it back online and you stabilized shortly afterwards, but we would like to give you some medication to help balance out the effects of the withdrawal and chemical changes you will experience"_. He'd been horrified at the time, not realising until that moment how deeply the First Order had insinuated itself into him; under his skin, into his very _brain_. _"Am I dangerous_ ," he'd asked, and they'd rushed to explain that no, his implants seemed to be focused on balancing his emotions and suppressing any bonds or extraneous emotions that the First Order didn't need.

_"They tried to make you a good little soldier" Poe had growled, fists clenched and anger in every line of his body. "They tried to make it so that you would be compliant, obey every little order they gave you."_

_He'd turned to Finn then. "But jokes on them, hey buddy?" and his grin had lit up the entire room, warming Finn through and through and making him feel like maybe he really was something special._

General Organa snorted and got to her feet, brushing off any grass and debris as she did. Finn pushed himself onto his elbows and then to his feet, sensing that the conversation was at an end for the night.

"What will I ever do with you boys," he heard Organa grumble and turned to her with wide eyes and heat in his cheeks. "Oh don't give me that look," she smirked smugly at him. "You don't need to be Force-sensitive to feel that pining." She snorted as he stammered, turning away with Lyrin and striding back towards the base. "I told him to wait in your room, by the way," she called back as he stared after her, and he felt his whole body flush in one sudden moment as Lyrin laughed merrily behind her.

He didn't stay there for long after that. He considered staying and thinking about what she had told him, but found his feet taking him back to the base before he even finished the thought. Perhaps it's a little pathetic of him, he thought, but he just couldn't leave Poe there after what was probably a considerable amount of time worrying.

He didn't quite know why he wasn't so worried about the disgust he'd seen now, but he thought maybe he understood a little better. Somehow he knew it wasn't actually aimed at him, but at the sudden, horrific thought that maybe Finn had been Cleaved.

And Finn thought, maybe, just maybe, the sheer amount of anger and fear spoke to Poe's feelings towards Finn.

He paused by the door to his room, hearing the murmurs of Poe speaking anxiously with BB-8, and a quiet, lilting tone that he knows he's heard before and suspects now is Flare. Flare who has watched him with Poe, who has perched near him and trilled a sound that he thought now was actually laughter. Flare, who he now remembered brushing her wing tips against his shoulder, plucking at his jacket and pressing casually against him. And Poe, who always got a soft expression when Flare touched him, a strange smile on his lips that had possibly held just a little bit of want and wistfulness.

As Finn opened the door to Poe's relieved cry, he thought, that while he may not be whole, maybe, just maybe, he doesn't have to be alone until he is.


End file.
